IR News

- Building firm market presence with advanced digital products like PDP TVs and DVDs
- Sales targets for high value added products like fully flat TV sets at US$500 million
- Fully localized marketing activities, making LGE a company growing together with the Chinese economy
- Total sales in 2001 expected to reach US$3.7 billion, a 50% growth over last year


LG Electronics, who made a successful entry into potentially the world's largest market - China, with sales revenue reaching US$3.7 dollars and the fifth strongest brand power in the industry, is now gearing its efforts to become a dominant force in the cutting-edge digital market including LCD TVs, DVDs and other digital products.

"LGE plans to increase its sales of high value-added products to US$500 million this year or 150% higher than last year (US$200 million in 2000) in China," said Vice Chairman Yong-ak Noh of LGE China Holding Company at the press conference held on July 10 in Beijing. Adding, "We plan to become a market leader by leveraging our competitive edge in cutting-edge digital products like fully flat TV, LCD monitor, LCD-TV, projection TV, PDP TV and DVD. Our objective is to make LG a leading digital brand in digital TV and other cutting-edge information and communication market in China."

Under the strategy of becoming a dominant player in China's digital display market, LGE added a new PDP TV production line at its Shenyang TV production subsidiary in May. In addition, it started production of high-end TV sets for annual production volume of over 60,000 sets (30,000 each for PDP TV and projection TV) along with the existing production line for wide projection TV sets.

At the same time, a line dedicated to TFT-LCD monitor production has been built at LGE's Nanjing plant, a monitor production base, to begin production of 15.1-inch and 18.1-inch TFT-LCD monitor from the end of July (annual production volume: 250,000).

Anticipating that China is likely to be the world's largest market in DVD ahead of the U.S., LGE became the first Korean company to expand production facilities for DVD players (annual production volume: 2 million) at its Shanghai plant last May. As a result, LGE now has local production facilities for a total of 10 DVD models.

In white appliances where LGE has already become a major brand in China, it plans to leverage its existing strong revenue base and add an US$100 million refrigerator and high-end air conditioner production facility at its Tianjin home appliances plant by the end of the year to upgrade its production capacity for high value added products.

LGE's sales target for 2001 is US$3.7 billion - almost a 50% increase over last year's US$2.5 billion. In the future, it plans to focus on cutting-edge digital products such as LCD monitor, projection TV, and PDP TV based on its strong foundation in traditional home appliance businesses like air conditioner and refrigerator. LGE's strategy is thereby to enhance its presence in the global market with China ? a fast growing market that is becoming a center of the world economy - as its main base.

Last year, LGE stood out as a rare success story among foreign companies. It beat out local players as well as Sony, Matsushita and other strong foreign players to have most of its products within the top 10 of their respective markets. More specifically, it was No. 1 in TV export among Chinese companies while in China; its CD-ROM drive was No. 1; micro wave No. 2; monitor NO. 3; washing machine No. 5 and air conditioner No. 6 in their respective markets. Its ultimate goal is to also become a major player in digital products by 2003.